It’s finally here.

The long-awaited arrival of cricket’s biggest party in North America is now hours away, and who better to kick things off than the two teams that played the first recorded international cricket match in history.

When USA host Canada in the opening match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 in Dallas, Texas on Saturday, a lot more than revenge for a century-old loss will be on the line.

ICC World Cup debutants USA will look to build on their recent dominance over their northern neighbours and get their tournament off to a winning start.

Canada, who have previously participated in ICC’s 50-over World Cup, will also make their debut in the T20 version of the tournament.

It is a landmark moment for the USA team to be in an elite competition after decades of being stuck in minor tournaments.

“We’ve been speaking over the last couple of years about playing in World Cups, about taking USA cricket to higher heights,” USA’s vice-captain Aaron Jones said ahead of the opening match.

“Playing [in] a World Cup is probably the highest height [so far].”

USA seek support from American born and raised fans

Jones says his team is determined to play a “fearless” brand of cricket.

There is pressure on the USA, as tournament co-hosts, with the West Indies, to deliver a strong showing on home soil.

The explosive, short format of the game is seen by cricket’s leaders as being the perfect version to capture the imagination of mainstream American sports fans and Jones says the team doesn’t want to be afraid of going on the attack.

“Fearless cricket, positive cricket, smart cricket. I think that’s what we’re really and truly trying to do,” Jones told a press conference.

“We don’t want to regret anything. If we come out on top, it’s great. If we don’t come out on top, that’s how cricket goes sometimes. But we don’t want to regret anything,” he added.

Jones was born in New York but raised in Barbados, which he represented earlier in his career, before moving back to the USA to be part of the team.

He acknowledges that the team has the added responsibility of being ambassadors for the sport when they play games in Texas, Florida and New York.

“What you do on the field is very important, but off the field stuff is very important as well, especially being a country that don’t really know much about cricket,” he said.

“We want to get the fans up; we want to get a lot more support from the American born and raised people and I think we could only do that by playing good and interacting with the fans or the growing fans off the field as well.”

#TeamUSA is ready for a historic showdown against Canada for the opening match of the @ICC @T20WorldCup tomorrow! 🔥🤩💪

Don’t have tickets yet? Buy them online 📲: https://t.co/sNaRIqkaLn#T20WorldCup | #WeAreUSACricket 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZGlpvCGvQs

— USA Cricket (@usacricket) May 31, 2024

Canada ready for ‘tough competition’

Meanwhile, Canada’s captain Saad bin Zafar believes his team are not under pressure and are equally excited to express themselves.

“Everybody’s itching to go, everybody’s in the performance mood,” Zafar told reporters on the eve of the match.

USA have had an upper hand over Canada in recent meetings and Zafar wants his team to come out on top in the tournament opener.

“We are rivals, we tend to play against each other a lot,” he said.

“There are a lot of friendships between the two countries as well at the same time,” Zafar added.

“And right now, because it’s a World Cup, it’s a grand stage, both countries want to have the best of them over their opponent.

“I believe we’re going to have a really good and tough competition and both teams will entertain the crowd.”

Here are the @t20worldcup Group Stage Fixtures for Team Canada 🇨🇦💪

Watch it live on Willow TV#t20worldcup #icc #wecancricket #cricketcanada pic.twitter.com/cC8ihYhpdr

— Cricket Canada (@canadiancricket) May 31, 2024

Head to head

The North American rivals have faced each other seven times in T20 matches, where USA have come on top on five occasions and Canada have won twice.

Four of these wins came in their recent five-match T20 series, which saw one match abandoned due to bad weather.

Form

USA enter the T20 World Cup on the back of a stunning 2-1 series win over Bangladesh, who were packed with big names such as Shakib al-Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman and captain Najmul Hossain Shanto.

Canada’s last T20 outing was against USA in the five-match series that they lost 4-0 and will look to set things right.

USA: L W W W W

Canada: L L A L L

USA team news

The co-hosts go into the match riding on the wave of the success of their series win and will not be looking to tinker with the XI that brought them the 2-1 series win.

USA squad: Monank Patel (captain), Shayan Jahangir, Andries Gous, Nitish Kumar, Steven Taylor, Harmeet Singh, Corey Anderson, Milind Kumar, Nisarg Patel, Shadley van Schalkwyk, Ali Khan, Jessy Singh, Saurabh Netravalkar, Nosthush Kenjige.

Canada team news

Having only completed one of their two pre-tournament warm-up matches, Canada will hope the side that beat Nepal last week will put on an improved performance against their North American neighbours and get off to a winning start.

Canada squad: Saad bin Zafar (captain), Navneet Dhaliwal, Aaron Johnson, Ravinderpal Singh, Kanwarpal Tathgur, Shreyas Movva, Dilon Heyliger, Dilpreet Bajwa, Harsh Thaker, Jeremy Gordon, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Nicholas Kirton, Pargat Singh, Rayyan Khan Pathan.